'My Mommies Can Marry': A Ruling Green-Lighting Gay Marriage Echoes Loudly through the Country-And in the 2004 Campaign

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Byline: Howard Fineman and T. Trent Gegax

Eight-year-old Annie Goodridge was in gym class in suburban Boston, working on floor hockey, when her mothers arrived on the scene, grinning. Hillary Goodridge (a foundation director) and Julie Goodridge (an investment adviser) were overjoyed at the news they were bringing. The lesbians were among seven same-sex couples who had sued in the Massachusetts courts, arguing that the state had no right, under its Constitution, to deny them marriage licenses and the legal powers and responsibilities those documents invoke. Now, in sweeping language, the Supreme Judicial Court had agreed. The two mothers--Julie is the biological one--told Annie what it all meant. The little girl, her parents recalled later, raced around the gym, waving her hockey stick over her head in victory. Puzzled friends asked her why she was so happy. "My mommies can …